Children's music is music composed and performed for children by adults. In European-influenced contexts this means music, usually songs, written specifically for a juvenile audience. The composers are usually adults. Children's music has historically held both entertainment and educational functions. Children's music is often designed to provide an entertaining means of teaching children about their culture, other cultures, good behavior, facts and skills. Many are folk songs, but there is a whole genre of educational music that has become increasingly popular.

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The growth of the popular music publishing industry, associated with New York's Tin Pan Alley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to the creation of a number of songs aimed at children. These included 'Ten little fingers and ten little toes' by Ira Shuster and Edward G. Nelson and 'School Days' (1907) by Gus Edwards and Will Cobb.[1] Perhaps the best remembered now is ‘Teddy Bears' Picnic', with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy in 1932 and the tune by British composer John William Bratton was from 1907.[2]

Recordings for children were intertwined with recorded music for as long as it has existed as a medium. The first words ever recorded (in 1860 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville) was the first verse of the French folk/children's song "Au Clair de la Lune". In 1888, the first recorded discs (called "plates") offered for sale included Mother Goose nursery rhymes. The earliest record catalogues of several seminal figures in the recording industry such as Edison, Berliner, and Victor all contained separate children's sections.

The mid-20th century arrival of the baby boomers provided a growing market for children's music as a separate genre. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Ella Jenkins were among a cadre of politically progressive and socially conscious performers who aimed albums to this group. During this time, such novelty recordings as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a Montgomery Ward jingle that became a book and later a classic children's movie) and the fictional music group "The Chipmunks" were among the most commercially successful music ventures of the time ("The Chipmunk Song" was a #1 hit single in 1958). TV personality Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) recorded several children's albums, as did Shari Lewis.

Children's music gained an even wider audience in the 1970s when musical features such as Schoolhouse Rock! and the original Letter People were featured on network and public television, respectively. These represented an effort to make music that taught specific lessons about Math, History, and English to youngsters through the high-quality, award-winning music. The classic public television children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood had music heavily featured as well. In the late 1970s, Canadian artist Raffi Cavoukian, coincided with the rise of children's music as a distinct music industry genre.

In the early 1990s, songwriter, record producer, and performerBobby Susser, emerged strongly with his easy-to-learn, award winning young children's songs and series, Bobby Susser Songs For Children that exemplified the use of children's music to educate young children in schools and at home.[4] Musical duo Greg & Steve have focused on the positive reaction children have to music.

In the United States, Children's music continues to be a force in the commercial music industry. At one point in early 2006, the top three albums on the Billboard charts were all children's music: Disney's High School Musical soundtrack, Kidz Bop 9, and the Curious George film soundtrack.[1] Most albums targeted nationally to children are soundtracks for motion pictures or symbiotic marketing projects involving mass-marketed acts such as The Wiggles or Veggie Tales.

Sanitized versions of earthy songs like Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain" have regularly been adapted for younger audiences. The 2008 version by Gil McLachlan re-tells the story as a child's dream, the last stanza being:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you're going on a holiday

Your birthday comes around once a week and it’s Christmas every day

You never have to clean your room or put your toys away

There's a little white horse you can ride of course

You can jump so high you can touch the sky

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

The use of children's music, to educate, as well as entertain, continued to grow, as evidenced in February 2009, when Bobby Susser's young children's series surpassed 5 million CD sales.[5]

Many children's stores and sometimes music outlets sell covers of pop songs, performed by adults for children, especially Christmas songs. These were especially popular during the early 2000s.